NJ towns may start charging you a fee for credit card payments

When purchasing native, you could be warned by retailers that paying together with your card will lead to a further cost, which is supposed to make up for the processing payment that the shops are charged with every digital transaction.

New Jersey is considered one of many states that allow institutions to go these charges on to the buyer. However native governments within the Backyard State do not have the facility to do the identical.

A proposed regulation superior by an Meeting committee goals to alter that. Sponsored by Assemblywoman Annette Quijano, D-Union, the measure would authorize native governments to impose comfort charges for accepting digital funds in particular person or on-line.

The measure, which was authorised unanimously on Nov. 15 by the Meeting State and Native Authorities Committee, would cap any payment at $three per transaction, as an alternative of allowing a percentage-based payment system.

“That is kind of permitting the regulation to catch as much as the occasions,” Mike Cerra, government director of the New Jersey League of Municipalities, instructed New Jersey 101.5.

In response to the invoice, a number of counties in New Jersey had been imposing these comfort charges, despite the fact that they don’t seem to be technically approved. By this proposed regulation, Cerra famous, the person taxpayer who chooses to pay electronically can foot the invoice for the comfort, as an alternative of getting the processing payment come out of the overall fund.

The measure was just lately amended to make clear that native governments should nonetheless give residents the choice to make funds by non-electronic means, corresponding to money, test, or cash order.

Contact reporter Dino Flammia at [email protected].

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